User talk:Kwismaskiller
Meridia quest tweaks Hi, just to let you know, the tweaks I made to your layout for Mikart were basically for compatibility, and ease of future editing. While it probably looked like you intended in some browsers (i.e. MS Edge) it was somewhat broken in Firefox and off in other ways for Safari. The smaller picture size (175px in the end) was so that the image will slide up beside the infobox properly when the Table of Contents was hidden on smaller screens (i.e iPad). does what you had tried to do with the Horizontal Line, but it works with all browsers by adding a proper column break regardless of the length of the infobox. adds the actual name of the current page into that spot, so you don't need to remember to change the link every time you copy the page. Although, since it would be linking to the page it's already on, the wiki just makes that text bold. So you you could also just make it not a link : Step 2: Speak with the Meridia of the Day : at -4,-24 on the 2nd Floor of the Temple of Scriptures}} or : at -4,-24 on the 2nd Floor of the Temple of Scriptures}} Repeated = turn the text they surround into a heading, which is automatically added to the Table of Contents. The bold (and italic) text was enough on its own. Changing the rewards to all be on one line (in the infobox) was to save scrolling/space on the lists that are automatically created from the information in the templates. Source editor If you haven't already, could you please go to your user settings and change the Preferred Editor to Source mode? (The head in a circle at the top of page >> My Preferences >> Editing >> Source editor) The VisualEditor doesn't keep the proper template layout, so that it is harder for people to see what has changed when going back through the page history. Source editor might look more complex at first, but it's mostly fairly simple. Instructions for wiki markup are at Source Mode is your friend. How the VisualEditor makes the templates look in Source/History: ''Also ''the name of the Meridia of Discord, a type of lower deity, to whom an offering is made on Junssidor (June) 3rd. How the templates are meant to be laid out: Also the name of the Meridia of Discord, a type of lower deity, to whom an offering is made on Junssidor (June) 3rd. Much easier to see if anything has-been/needs-to-be changed in the infobox. I can see that you are copying your previous day and then updating it. Perhaps for the next quest you could start from the Mikart page that has already been tweaked. Keij (talk) 17:50, December 30, 2018 (UTC) Standardized Template Needed Let me start with, I think your heart is in the right place with wanting to edit the wiki to appeal to new players and create a more consistent appearance. However, with your form of editing it goes against the template and therefore cannot be standardized for me to pick up. In the form you currently have it, the only way to correct your formatting is through the visual editor. In order to make your experience much more enjoyable I think you should perhaps suggest a new template that everyone can read and understand. I don't want you to get through months and months of work only to have it scrapped because it does not meet the formatting standards. I ask that you create a standardized format and get input prior to editing more of the wiki. The pages that use visual editor is extremely hard to keep standardized. Use KATE text editor (with Mediawiki highlighting enabled) and AUTOTEXT from Jbit to help edit many pages and keep it organized. --Christopher Barecky (talk) 00:32, December 31, 2018 (UTC) ---- Reply... I have tried various forms of coding available in other wiki pages, but the style sheet for Dofus is so antiquated that I am limited to 1990s html code. I am trying to deal with these limitations, and realize they carry through to various screen resolutions. I have created five pages thus far, and have begun to play with them in order to find something that works. Nonethless, being able to add java script and the like to the style sheet would be great. There are already so many more approved scripts and coding available to other wikis, but none can be accessed here, such as page navigation buttons, or even buttons at all. I am not a programmer, but I did write and maintain a multilanguage page for several years when I owned an ESL school. Then, I used a visual editor, Kompozer, and rewrote certain of the code in a text editor, adding scripts and the like that were not available in the editing program. -Apo P.S. I decided to analyze the .css page, and have found a way to incorporate some of the latent features into my pages, such as "Back to Top" buttons, instead of just linked text. I will try to find other loopholes in the .css. Of course, these will be non-standard, and will require others to copy snippets of my code to immitate my style. -Apo It uses Wikitext or MediaWiki markup language, the exact one Wikipedia uses. A resource you could use is: : http://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Wikitext : https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wikitext The program I use that highlights the Wikitext is Kate and then I select Tools > Highlighting > Markup > MediaWiki. Templates are a powerful thing and can be created by anyone. Just remember if you change any of the source templates it could break much of the website so be very careful when messing around with those. A way to use "back to top" for Village in the Clouds would be Back to Top or read this Wikipedia article about linking images, such as a 'Back to Top' button - and I'm sure it'll work on this wiki as well. Here is an example of what your page looks like in the beginning compared to the actual Template. What it looks like: Obtaining Talk to NPC at , in Subarea. Step 1: Title from Quest Book ; Text from top of Quest Book. : Clarification text, if needed, such as: : Click on x at ,. : You will enter a fight against x Level xx Monster. : Other characters can/cannot join the fight. : You will drop x Item. : You will receive x Item. : You will lose x Item. : You must complete or have completed the quest Quest to be able to talk to it. Rewards * Related Achievements * Some very advanced template use and layout that you might be seeking are on The League of Legends Wiki. It is broken into sections and if you hover the mouse over "Fury" on that page there are even Pop-outs of additional information. As I said, my suggestion is to learn template creation, Wikitext/MediaWiki language for editing and make it where others can edit the rest of the wiki for consistency. The admins are very understanding on this website and have helped me out a ton while I also learn Templates, Wikitext/MediaWiki. If you notice I'll edit like one page 20 times because I generally have very minor mistakes like double-spaced areas, word misspellings, and messing up the template. Oh and instead of using -Apo, you can sign your talk page with, ~~~~ --Christopher Barecky (talk) 19:49, December 31, 2018 (UTC) Apo is the name people know me by in the game, but which upon signing up to Wikia I was not allowed to use. In a way, it feels more like my real name after so many years. I really like that page you reommmended. I would like to adopt some of their structure. It would be nice to add a graphic matrix for quests, with the axes: time, difficulty, players needed, and rewards. It might provide guidance for those trying to decide if a quest is worth the time and resources, or if it just busy work. As well, I want to add references to quests when they are part of a larger quest line, such as for a dofus. I have no desire to wholly change any templates yet. The Almanax project is my sandbox for new formatting. I will keep at it a while. Update, our .css and script seems to be quite limited, with almost no features that can be called up in the pages. I cannot even get show/hide or dropdown to work. We will never look like League of Legends till we can call up more. I could, for example, create individual pics like the quest axes using Photoshop, but that would be very time consuming. Update: In addition to Page Up buttons, I now have expanadable tables (ugly as can be though) working. Now, page navigation is somewhat easier, though I do want to have full navigation after each section, and screenshots are hidden till wanted. Check the Aris page. I hope to clean these up a bit soon. I am slowly bastardizing the old code in our .css to make soemthing cool. I have also noted that the older wikis are all generally badly designed, probably because the old style sheets are rarely updated with new snipits, functions, jars, widgets and the like. Nonetheless, if WoW can take its simple design and make it cool, so can we. I only wish that I could change the damned background! Update: I am basically done with the new design for all Almanax quests/Meridia. Take a look at the Aris page to see how I will be formatting this rather great project. I have also added links to other Ankama pages, particularly those associated with Krosmoz, so as to draw more players into the storyline. Now, I only need one thing... Please, somebody who has higher user privileges than me, please change the background color on Quest Boxes/Summaries/Etc. (and all other boxes too) from that puke green, #66CDAA, to the green used in buttons and boxes, #F9ECC3 (text color then needs to be the same as the page background color, #F9ECC3, and obviously not black), which I adopted for use in the name page style? Please, let's show some taste!^^ Update: If you cannot beat them, or get their help, join them! I have re-adapted the colors of the page to work with the ugly puke green - even emracing it. Take a look now, because this is the final style for the 366 Almanax quest pages. Let's face it, the style sheet is antiquated, and nobody probably wants to update it. I have tried to take advantage of holes in the code to do some cool stuff, but I have hit my limit. So, enjoy Aris the final draft.^^ Kwismaskiller (talk) 17:01, January 3, 2019 (UTC) ---- Just a heads up that the new final draft does not jive well with the mobile aspect of Fandom/Wikia nor does the green color go well if the admins decide to do anything within their Theme Designer. My biggest suggestion is to hash out some improvements to the template, possible style changes, and other such things with Gravestorm, Keij, Catwater, and the other admins. Don't get me wrong, the information you are adding is non-existent so very much needed, but I fear the same thing will happen to your stuff because all 17,000+ pages will need to be changed to the new theme/layout that you have which is a daunting task. It is better to alter the source theme and make the rest as neutral as possible so future changes to the site can be easily implemented with mass changes rather than having to go to each individual page to remove certain style elements. That is why we use templates which have their own styles applied to them. --Christopher Barecky (talk) 04:35, January 6, 2019 (UTC) ---- I understand what you are saying. However, our site looks hack. I realize that all the older games like WoW and Sims have simplistic pages too, as nobody want to risk changing so many global variables. I could create a sandbox wiki just to restart the whole thing, and then try to plug it in and hope that the changes cascaded properly. Or, I could just make changes to pages (remember the pages I am doing now did not exist before), and then hope others attempt to copy, or incorporate, the styles. I am not sure which would be the bigger success or hazard. Perhaps a vote can be taken. Anyway, why not expect contributors to learn a bit of code? I have, as this is almost nothing like the html I used in the past, or, I should say, is composed of pieces of many different coding styles. As well, we may have 23k pages, but many of them are on outdated game aspects, kept only as historical reference. Finally, I am not sure that the mobile site of this wiki is important. As regards small screens, I have tested the new page on my pad computer, and it shows up fine - a little bit scrunched, but fine. Most players sit in front of a few desktops when we play, so I cannot even imagine needing to access wiki pages on a mobile while playing. Even if somebody does, they can still see the info, if not perfect. If this were Dofus Touch, I could understand the need. Anyway, I will set up the first few pages of June Meridia in this style, and then we can decide if we should adapt page by page, or redo the style sheet. Thank you for the compliment, I have been hoping the culture references would be appreciated. Kwismaskiller (talk) 19:27, January 6, 2019 (UTC) If you can sandbox a global fandom theme for the Dofus Fandom page and then talk to the admins to see if they would turn it on then that would be great. Currently I am about to start back up editing now that my computer is reformatted and running optimally. Just downloaded Dofus and will be using the templates page. In any case, I have made my recommendations and suggestions now I'll leave you to have fun and edit away. Don't want to beat the dead horse so I'll see you around! :) --Christopher Barecky (talk) 19:48, January 6, 2019 (UTC) Standard Wiki Templates Hi there, first of all thanks for your hard work on the wiki. It's always good to see another person interested in helping out. That being said please use standard wiki templates when editing the wiki. You can find them here: Dofus:Templates. These templates should be used on all wiki pages or your pages will be marked for reformatting and will create additional work for other users. These templates allow players of all skill levels to be able to easily edit the wiki and contribute towards it and allow us to maintain a consistent look and feel through out the wiki. Additionally, the templates ensure that our article pages have a clean and uncluttered look. Additionally, I am unsure what you are trying to accomplish with this page Krosmoz. I don't really think you need to have a page on the dofus wiki dedicated to another wiki but you can, if you want, add it to the list of useful links on the wiki. If nothing else, please rename it to Krosmoz Wiki. The Krosmoz is the universe within which the world of Dofus exists, so such a page would need to be a location article with the necessary details and formatting. If you are unsure of how to rename a page let me know and I can rename it for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me on my talk page. Thanks! Duos-Bandaid (talk) 03:18, January 10, 2019 (UTC) Thank you for your advice. I am not sure you have read the information above, in which I have previously hashed this out. Honestly, the Dofus wiki is outdated and ugly. The game is losing players steadily, and gaining few new ones. I truly believe that the antiquated wiki is part of the problem. Therefore, I am attempting to improve the situation by creating new, better-formatted pages. As all these pages are new, I see no problem with previous editors. Further, the Krosmoz section is to try to add a sense of continuity with the other games and media within the universe, much in the same way that games such as D&D do. finally, I am working on a whole new look for the wiki by hashing designs out on a sandbox wiki site, using this as a sort of alternative to just changing formatting here. Truthfully, there are two problems that could occur. First, global changes to the style sheet, in the case of a new one, could filter badly through existing pages, making them look worse. Second, those who do not know coding could damage the design of pages reformatted using the exisitng style sheet, but with my/others' improvements. Either alternative is better than the 1990s looking wiki we have now, though the new style sheet will take time. I suppose the other editors have two choices as well. You can either get on board with some stylistic changes of your own. Or, you can ban me. As I seem to be the best designer you have at the moment (unless somebody is hiding their skill), I suppose if you want to stop losing players to flashy, newer games whose only advantage over Dofus is their better look in interface, marketing and wiki, you might better give me a free hand in this project. After all, what is there to lose but another server?^^ Kwismaskiller (talk) 17:58, January 10, 2019 (UTC) Re: Standard Wiki Templates : Hi Apo, I've read what you've written and while I can understand where you’re coming from, overall I don’t think I quite agree with your reasoning. I happen to like having a clean, simple layout for the articles, and while I appreciate adding extra information and details, I really dislike having too many things going on in a page and having it look so cluttered. Also, I actually tend to use wiki on mobile quite a bit because I am often not home and in front of my personal laptop. :That's not to say that I think all of your ideas are bad. I think having a back to top button is a good idea; I think the way you want to go about implementing it is less than ideal, as what you have on your example page looks extremely cluttered and clunky. Having a fixed back to top button on the side of the page for easy navigation would be great though and this would be something great to work on. :To address your concern about the wiki being a reason why new players are not joining dofus and your proposal that it be used to market the game…I think you have the customer journey for dofus a bit mixed up. New players do not join the game because of a wiki…it’s often only once they’ve started getting into the game that they even think to look at the wiki or any other community related sites/materials. These sorts of things help foster engagement and retention – not initial acquisition. And even if we focus on engagement and retention, the best place to start on amping these aspects up would be Ankama’s own social media platforms and the official forums, not necessarily the wiki. :Now for some housekeeping – Use the standard templates. They help not only with ease of editing but also ensure a consistent user experience. If you feel that templates need to be modified, propose the changes you wish to see happen and we can consider them. Until then stick to using the ones we have. If I am the one patrolling your edits and I come across pages that are not using standard templates, I will be marking them with reformatting tags. This is the process, regardless of who is making/ editing the pages. Also, please refrain from adding non dofus content to the Dofus Wiki. I encourage you to add these pages to their respective wikis. :Finally, I think it’s great that you care so much about dofus and want it to do well and that’s definitely something I can appreciate. However, I think your approach is a bit off. A lot of the things you want to see happening seem more suitable for a personal fansite or blog. If that’s an idea that interests you I encourage you to see how it goes. It will give you full creative control and help you to focus on the areas of the game you think would be most beneficial. And as you care about expanding your skillset and experience in regards to marketing, coding and design, I think such a project would be a welcome challenge that lets you explore all the various aspects of these three fields. : As always, I am open to hearing your feedback/questions. Thanks, Duos-Bandaid (talk) 05:10, January 11, 2019 (UTC) I think you are afraid of change. "Clunky".^^ The button you propose requires a change to the style sheet (our very simple one BTW), so I hacked the search button feature to create the one, just like I did for the pop-up bar. As regards the wiki affecting marketing... Because the wiki is actually one of the first things a new player sees after starting the game, as he tries to navigate quests and items, it very much is a marketing tool. The wiki helps retain new players. Further, I plan to add a link to every page, directing readers to the Dofus site, so as to imrove link backs for Dofus itself, and thus its Google rating. You wonder why I add so much text, such as typing out the full dialogues (and thus the need for collapsable tables - also my addaptation of a latent feature)? That is so that Google and other search engines add the pages to more searches. This idea comes from how porn sites add information so as to come up on so many searches not related to porn at all (made famous in the film Ted 2^^). You can read my blog entry about the marketing issue (User_blog:Kwismaskiller/Dofus_Wiki_WAM_Score). As well, I have not dispensed with the templates - only added information beyond them. You cannot rightly accuse me of not using them!^^ As I said before, you can help me do what needs to be done, or you can ban me. This blog's WAM score is #457 (from a high of #88, apparently years ago). I have already reached a quarter of your personal editing score in just a month, and could easily surpass it another month (That does not even include all of the anonymous editing I have done over the years, which would easily put me ahead of you. Read my earlier blog entries for more info on that). Are you just going to play the Fiddler on the Roof "Tradition" card? Or, are you going to do what is necessary to keep Dofus going? - Kwismaskiller (talk) 08:54, January 11, 2019 (UTC) BTW Duos-Bandaid (talk), If one of you admins would simply set the mobile page to have tables/sections start collapsed instead of expanded, by changing the style sheet, all pages, including your own, would look cleaner, then users could simply expand the tables/sections to see the info they want. Ergo, the cluttered look of the mobile version was a problem predating me.^^ - Kwismaskiller (talk) 11:32, January 11, 2019 (UTC) I understand that this is a bit of a charged conversation because you have invested time and effort into your project, however, it is very counterproductive to feel attacked and have a who's better at SEO contest. Admins are admins because they have helped the FANDOM Wikia of Dofus grow into what it is today which is better than other games which do not have these types of resources at all. It is better to stay level-headed and propose logical changes to the template, style, or formatting. The Administrators have been very understanding and cordial in their approach. These kinds of things take time and if you are so interested in making this Wikia a better place - be patient. It will not and can not be an overnight ordeal or change. We are bringing our knowledge and concerns to you and we all expect this conversation to remain productive. Inviting an admin to ban you if he doesn't like the changes is simply - not - the way to go. --Christopher Barecky (talk) 02:23, January 13, 2019 (UTC) Reply : @kwismaskiller - I don't understand why you want to antagonize me, or what doing so helps you accomplish. If you want to compare edit counts you are free to do so. Regardless of how you may belittle my work, I know the quality of the work I have done and the hours and effort I have put into this wiki, both in terms of promoting it and encouraging others to work on it and in terms of adding content to it. My edits are all made manually and rather than 100s of tiny edits to one page, I usually try to get everything in as few edits as possible. And most of my edits are adding in missing content rather than maintenance or styling changes. I also don't have countless hours on hand, I contribute as and when I'm able to and have done so through out the years. Also, I manage to make edits without insulting anyone else or being dismissive of the work they do and the skills they have :p : As for the points you make, I know about marketing best practices, about SEO and WAM scores and I did not just learn about these things yesterday. In my reply to you, I very specifically outlined the role that wiki and other community resources play in retention marketing but this is not the wiki's primary purpose and it's very much secondary to Ankama's own platforms. Additionally, I tend to use expandable tables quite a bit as they are especially useful for picture spoilers and there are quite a few of them in use on my profile page. : I think you have some good ideas and goals but the I think the way you're going about them is questionable. The wiki is a community effort, not one person's pet project. Everyone on here that contributes to it does their best and we value those efforts. This goes for you as well. Although I disagree with you, I still appreciate that you care and are taking the time to work on the wiki. I especially want to commend you on your most recent edits. Those were very well done and I am sure that the people that come to view that information in the future will appreciate it as well. I want to encourage you to continue doing good work like that. In the end, we're all here working on the wiki because we care about this game and this community and I hope you'll keep that in mind moving forward. Duos-Bandaid (talk) 02:55, January 13, 2019 (UTC) Yes, I did a lot of sandboxing when creating new styles. It could not be helped. Needless to say, now I have a wiki set up just for the purpose, so that I can test ideas without risking the Dofus wiki, like the new styles on a couple of infoboxes (which actually just use the page colors some long ago admin chose for other elements in the page - we clash so much, like a blind finger painter!^^). Actually, I had not wanted such arguments, thus the reason I started trying new styles on pages that not only had not existed before me... The category itself had not even existed, except as a lame catchall some devs used when they could not decided on an item category. I think my application of "Krosmoz" is much more accurate, and it suits the purpose of bringing all these wiki sites together under one story. One of my students in France and her husband had not even heard of Dofus before me. How sad is that? It would be like an American never hearing of Disney, or a Russian ignorant of Masha and Medved. That is when I decided we had to do something to save Dofus before the long slide to the realm of forgotten games, like Tunnels and Trolls. I have survived many years in a quite hostile environment, so if I take some of the things people say as threats, it is because I am used to that as par for the course in daily life. For instance, just yesterday evening some guy in an SUV started driving into the crosswalk while I was still in front of him. As usual, I had my phone out recording, as I always do when crossing streets in Almaty. He stopped his car after turning, as I noticed, and started walking after me. I could hear him calling in Russian, "Chelovek, chelovek..." But, I ignored him, preparing for a fight. When he finally grabbed my shoulder, I turned and yelled in his face, "Ne trogai menya!... Chto taffucking koi!?" He just looked abashed, and walked away.^^ I am a reactive person, not a proactive one. Had people not antagonized me for my little sins in sandboxing designs while trying to decide on a better look, I would not have reacted. Quite frankly, given the current state of the game, I cannot see how anybody could even be disagreeable, given that something has got to be done. After all, who does not get a pm every month or so from some long-gone friend, asking, "You still play this game? I thought it was dead. I just logged in before deleting it off my computer. Well, good luck. Bye." The Japanese have a concept called Marketing House, whereby everybody associated with a business is part of the marketing effort. That is what I am trying. - Kwismaskiller (talk) 15:55, January 13, 2019 (UTC) Set removal From the patch notes for update 2.48: :Store items visible in the game (capes, backpacks, headgear, shields, and weapons) have all been turned into ceremonial items that are linked to the account for 62 days. The items are now all at level 1, are no longer Smithmageable, and can be sold in Marketplaces once the link has expired. Items that are not visible in the game (belts, boots, rings, and amulets) keep their current levels, their bonuses have been rebalanced, and they are no longer linked to the account. They can now be acquired in the game using a recipe and sold in Marketplaces. All sets made up of items that were in the store before the revamp have been removed. The remaining items may still share a name, but they are no longer a set as the game defines it. If Ankama changes its mind in the future and re-associates the various sets, then the wiki can be updated again (as they have occasionally reintroduced removed NPCs etc.). I did not mark the individual items as Unavailable, just the set that no longer exists. Keij (talk) 01:09, January 22, 2019 (UTC) I wanted to point out to those who complain that I re-edit articles perhaps too much that I am in Kazakhstan, where the internet is unstable at best, and disappears for political reasons at times. For example, today I was editing the four items of a set, researching past information as is my way of doing things so as to make the pages more informational, and then as I pressed publish on all four items, the internet went out, causing me to lose an hour's worth of work. Just so you know, I am not going through that again, and will publish at key points, even if I know I will need to go back. I am just lucky I have not suffered a blackout lately, as often happens in Almaty, especially when there is rain. Thank you for your understanding. -Kwismaskiller (talk) 18:26, January 25, 2019 (UTC) Templates do not seem to be working today. Probably the changeover. Rather than lose any more work, I will complete what I started today if things work tomorrow. --Kwismaskiller (talk) 17:15, February 10, 2019 (UTC)